Monday, April 27, 2015

J@H - Oreo Cookies

I'm a little behind on my Junk at Home challenge - I blame going on vacation, followed directly by a work conference. Luckily, I'm coming back with an amazing recipe! Homemade Oreos!!!

Yes, this recipe requires all of those exclamation marks.

I fed a few of these to the boyfriend and he described them as such... "they taste like Oreos, but without that stale, crumbly, crunchy part. The filling is dead on."

I can't take credit for the filling. I looked at a bunch of different recipes for Oreo fillings online and I decided to go with the one that sounded the least healthy and most unnatural. Just because these cookies are homemade, doesn't mean that they are healthy.

At all.

There is a whole bunch of shortening in these cookies, but there is also Greek yogurt, so you know, it totally evens out.

Seriously though, you should probably share these cookies with your friends and family. Limit yourself to one, two tops, and enjoy twisting open the cookies and eating the unnaturally white cookie filling.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Melt chocolate chips in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring often. Once melted, remove from the burner to cool a bit.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer), beat together butter, vegetable shortening and sugar on high. Beat for about 3-4 minutes, or until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add yogurt and grapeseed oil and beat until smooth. Add melted chocolate and mix until color is even and chocolate is incorporated.

Add flour mixture all at once. Mix on low until the dough comes together. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for 1 more minute. Divide dough in half.

Cut a long piece of plastic wrap and place one half of the dough on the plastic wrap. Fold the plastic over the dough (folding the plastic in half) and flatten dough with a rolling pin until it is 3/16-inches thick (I used rolling pin guides). Do the same with the second half of the dough. Place both slabs of dough on a cookie sheet and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Place parchment paper or a silpat on cookie sheets. Remove one slab of dough from the fridge and stamp out 1 1/2-inch circles. Bake cookies for 12 minutes, or until puffed and edges are crisp.

Remove cookies from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. Take cookies off the sheet and let cool on a wire rack until they are room temperature. Make cookie filling while the cookies cool.

Flip over half of the cookies. Measure out 1/2 tablespoons of cookie filling (I used a small cookie scoop). Roll in the palm of your hands and flatten out to a circle. Place the filling onto one of the cookies. Continue making dough discs until you have enough for all the cookies. Sandwich the filling with another cookie, smooshing them together until the filling reaches the edges of the cookies.

You will probably have a bit of filling leftover - I recommend rolling balls of filling, freezing, then coating in chocolate. Unhealthy and so tasty.